Erwin

A work around is for the designer to create many small VL's at a location so the occupation of one or two VL's by a wounded crewmember with a pistol won't affect the overall result too much.

I would add a lock toggle limiting a player to level one (maybe and two) for those who really want to play Iron. (Why not?) In terms of increasing the "ease of play" we need a revamp of the ACQUIRE command and how it works (ie: from any adjacent unit), plus selectable waypoints and lines so one can instantly select a different unit without having to go back to its location (will definitely need this as the maps get larger). A quick and easy visual way to ID teams from the same squad so one can keep em in formation and not get em all mixed up with other squads. A colored outline maybe?

Ah, I see.... The problem is with 2nd floors and above as all the windows are identical which is more "distracting" than the original default. On small single-floor buildings the windows look terrific. Can you simply make those higher windows a black hole - like they have already been blown out? I rarely saw damaged windows in the ME, but many simply didn't have any frames or glass, so looked like "black squares". Yes, it's the paved roads that act "funny" re how far away the camera is. IIRC, close up it looked like the default "track". Further away, you got a pristine main road. The opposite of what one would expect. (I checked my mods and did NOT see any other road mods that could be interfering.) But, I suspect that the large "highway" roads will have to be removed. They look terrible when you get close.

Is it possible to randomize the textures (by adding a "2" after the file names) so they both appear in the game? Both bunkers look good.

So, you take a Brummbar or somesuch.

Hmmm... so one could simulate sci-fi hover-tanks and vehicles etc. by making the lower part transparent, and painting the rest so it looks like it's out of StarWars or somesuch? I like where you're going with this Kieme.

I had resisted firing up CMSF until I had all your mods in place. 95% really looks great. A couple of issues I noticed however. On large buildings especially, having all the damaged windows looks identical looks strange. The roads option doesn't seem to work. They look like rough tracks close up and roads when the camera is far away - strange. The highway option is the opposite as when you get close you can see the highways and lines on them don't work at an angle. The swampy ground seems very green and completely featureless from a distance. As the camera gets closer it abruptly changes from featureless green to green with doodads. It could be I have other mods interfering. The buildings and walls look much better. Will these mods work in CMA??

am hoping a talented designer can use Euroscape mods to create Ukrainian scenario with "Red vs Red".

Would be great to have more Tunisian and other NA scenarios if the correct mods are available.

Of course looking at a map of the village wouldn't tell you how the rooms are arranged and where the doors are either, and waypoints wouldn't tell you what you can see from them, roads wouldn't zigzag etc. So, it's more of a game issue... at what point on the spectrum of unrealism does verisimilitude break down.

Man, does the goodness ever stop...? (Seriously... how much more is there?)

Very helpful advice. One thing tho'... the above assumes a significant amount of time available in the scenario so that one can do the above in the "relaxed" manner described. That's a design issue. Personally, I think most designers don't penalize sufficiently for friendly casualties. The average scenarios tend to be won so long as you still have one man alive on a VL even tho' everyone else has been massacred. I hope we get more scenarios that 1) penalize friendly casualties to a realistic level and 2) allow time for the sort of measured attack approach Jason describes.

"I prefer RT in the early stages of the game..." I can understand that as many (not all) designers will allow a generous amount of real estate to be traversed before contact is made. But, it's just as easy to keep pressing the GO button if you're in a hurry. On the other hand, some designers ambush you very quickly. So, beware.

Interesting question is why didn't the manufacturer have additional armor on the default vehicle. Presumably added weight would have created problems to the performance? So, if troops added the weight themselves then did that degrade performance and are we saying that the degradation didn't matter?

Michael: Yeah, I know it's a hypothetical humorous concept, but the reality is that train sims are very popular and real modelers can easily spend thousands of dollars on models these days let alone the thousands of man-hours to build a layout. So, it is an established and proven market - way larger than the wargame market. Combining the two is an interesting idea...

Also, with the Euroscape mods we could do Ukraine right now. Basically I am seeing BMP's, BTR's, some T60-70 type armor on both sides. Am hoping that all is needed are new uniforms and flags/insignia, Slavic faces and helmets.

You can't beat those paintjobs.

I am visualizing how much fun this will be when there is another two or three families of CM2 games to regularly upgrade (along with upgrading each family's mods)...

Looks really amazing. Good enuff to purchase actually.

An important (current) issue with dense urban scenarios is that it is hard to place the camera to see the action. Walls get in the way very easily and LOS of units can be "erratic" as one may be able to see a target easily, but the game system has trouble allowing one to target something that seems in plain sight.

Depends how much they price it at. Personally, I would pay a lot for a WW2 train sim. Have you any idea how incredibly expensive are the actual model trains?? (Still not holding my breath tho'.)

Wow. Thank you Kieme...

Impressive. What they shooting at? The Ocean? Good way to catch large quantities of fish. It was interesting as I had thought that the crews were supposed to stay in the armored transports when firing missiles. You'd think they would be vulnerable to counter measures outside.

Hope that helps the "realism at all costs" guys...

Be great if it were transportable - like nuke waste containers, bombs, relief supplies...